


Doctor After Dark #2 - Burning Out

by UglyWettieWrites



Series: Doctor After Dark [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Tenny - Fandom, Tenth Doctor - Fandom
Genre: Alien Eroticism, Angst and Feels, F/M, Sex in a TARDIS, Supernova Sex Explosions, TARDIS is the wingthing, Timelord Sex, Wherein we find out why he couldn't be with Rose in his Timelord hide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9580136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyWettieWrites/pseuds/UglyWettieWrites
Summary: After his despair with Rose and what happened with Martha & the Master, he's a bit seared by it all and wants nothing but peace.  The TARDIS knows better than to leave him to his own devices, and drops him in London in the 90's.After Donna, there was Violet - the grunge swordswoman with the flock of sparrows in her head that whispered to her of a man beyond time - the woman who touched him a little deeper than the rest.





	

A subtle tremble penetrated his shoes and rose up his legs. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He could no longer concentrate on his calculations. The keyboard, buttons, knobs, and switches were a reminder of his sensory deprivation. Cold plastic. Warm steel. Smooth, but lifeless.

After the last close call, she disappeared into the heart of the TARDIS without a word. He knew she needed time, so he left her alone, but it's been ages. Or maybe hours, but time stretched unpleasantly when she wasn't around.

He took off his jacket and his shoes, sighed at the cool grating on his bare feet. He adored simple pleasures. A cup of tea. A colorful tie. A new, unexplored pocket of time and space. Even the constant threat of death just invigorated him. After 900 years, time was bubblegum that wouldn't stop its stretch, tugging not so gently at his flesh.

He made a cuppa for himself, and one for her. She didn't like it dark like he did. She took her milk with a splash of tea and so much sugar it made his [new] teeth hurt. He walked into the main hall and tipped his face up, taking a deep breath. The TARDIS was a labyrinth that hid her when it wanted to – he was sure that it was starting to like her more than him – but it couldn't hide her scent.

Human women. Obscene and lovely. He never told a soul he could smell them. He could block men out, a natural side affect of his sexuality, but womenscent assaulted him constantly. He could tell age, race, socioeconomic strata by scent alone, and he had a preference.

He took the third hallway to the left. The floor bucked beneath him, and he walked down a steep incline that curved like a spiral staircase. His lips curled upward.

_I've never been here before._

Slowly, she built a world of her own in the bones of his. The hallway took him directly to her, but she was behind a big red door with no lock, no knob. Her music blared, making waves in the surface of the tea. His lips parted to call her, but he thought better of it.

If there's a door, she must not want him inside.

The thought perplexed him. He shrugged and touched the door. It opened and the music flooded his senses, making his eyes water. She was in a pentagonal room of mirrors. Even the ceiling and the floors reflected her dancing form.

She gyrated to the music, nude except for a paltry bit of cloth that covered her center. Her eyes were half-closed and she smiled, but it was a private smile. He lived long enough, known enough women in his regenerations to know it. One of the cups crashed on the floor. It cracked the mirror, and she opened her eyes.

“Doctor!”

He turned his head, unable to look directly at her nakedness.

“Don't look away! You're in my world now, and there are no lies allowed here. From either of us.”

She ran to him, fell to her knees to pick at the shattered bits of mug. Blood flowers bloomed in the liquid at his feet.

“Doctor, you're hurt.” She looked up at him and lightly touched his ankle. He shook it away. She ran and got her blouse, a black bit of silk that did nothing to sop up the mess. Tea and blood dripped from her thighs. She threw the sodden thing across the room.

“That music...” he looked around.

“Do you remember when and where we met?” Her arm was wrapped around her ribcage, raising her breasts. She swayed to the music.

“Of course. Islington. 1993. Somewhere outside...”

“...A place called the Hope and Anchor,” she finished.

“Yes. A bit seedy, honestly. But exciting. I found you. Or better said, you found me.”

She licked her sticky fingers. “Oh, that tea was for me? Thanks anyway.”

He nodded.

“Did I tell you I wanted to become a musician?”

“You mentioned it.” Despite the spilled tea, the room exuded her scent. It was truly alien, since the TARDIS was his. Or so he thought.

“You're inordinately quiet, Doctor.”

“It's the music. It's a bit much.”

“You don't like it?”

“Did you write it?” he said.

“No. Not really, but that beat is everything, right?”

“It's fine.”

She hugged him, pressing her ear to his chest. He held his breath. Her bare breasts were a new pressure on his skin.

“You have two hearts.”

“Yes,” he said. He didn't want to see, but the mirrors' angles made it so no matter where he looked, he could see her.

“Where, exactly? Show me.”

He placed her hand where each heart beat. She put her head back on his chest, right between the two. Her smile grew. And the music changed. It was subtle, but soon he barely heard it, although she danced as if it were loud as ever. The tips of her dark hair stuck together and to her skin with sugar. It added something to her natural scent that strengthened as she danced.

“Listen, Doctor!” She raised her arms and spun, drunk on it. “It's feeling, in stereo.” Gold particles formed in the air above and beneath her, coalescing on her skin, shining out her eyes and spinning out, slow, lifting and cradling her.

His jaw dropped. She was not only aware of them, but could manipulate them. He hadn't seen such a thing since- his chest tightened with sorrow.

“Your timelines! What are you doing?!”

She floated in a cloud of gold. It rippled over her skin. Her brown eyes were gilded. And intensifying light shone from her center. Despite his reserve, he responded to it. Hardened.

“She showed me. I know now.”

Not again. Please, not again. He wanted to pull her down, but couldn't. Every golden ripple that trembled over her, every glimmer was a moment she literally spent for the sensation. Time was dear, for her.

“Come down. It feels good, but you keep it up you'll just spin right out. Disappear. You're not made for it!  You're bound too loosely.”

She would not be moved.

“It allows more starshine to get through,” she said, laughing.

He wanted to cry. He pointed his screwdriver at her. The mirrors multiplied its blue million times, but it couldn't cut through the gold. It was hers, and the TARDIS wouldn't allow it.

“Do you hear it?” Molten gold bled out from between her legs and began to orbit around her. First one, then a second and third line.

Her children, spent. He wanted to curse.

“I hear nothing. Stop it this instant!” He beat up against the mirrored walls. He wasn't speaking so much to her, but the TARDIS. “Stop it! Please!”

He felt betrayed. What was it with human women and the TARDIS? Although he did not ascribe a sex to it, he was beginning to suspect that there was something to what his companions confessed to him. That the TARDIS whispered to them in their sleep, showed them such fantastic things – things he never thought about, knew about, or could ever touch. That it was a woman, or at least, had very feminine energy.

“Then let me change the beat.” She put her hand over her own heart and closed her eyes. The music rose, lapping at his feet and rising toward his chest like the tide. In all his travels, he never heard anything like it. Tears dripped from his wondering eyes.

“Violet, stop. I can't.”

Their combined heartbeats made his Time Lord bones vibrate. His, a slow steady double tattoo that hers danced around. Faster, and ever fading. Maybe not to human ears, but he heard it. Every time, he did.

“Why do I hear it now?”

Her feet touched the floor, and she walked to him. Bright silver lines grew from her temples. “Because I added myself to the mix,” she said, caressing him. He grabbed her wrist. Her face blurred through the tears in his eyes.

“I wanted to be a musician before you found me. But it's too late now. You've shown me too much. I could never do better than this.”

He started to weep, because he knew what he had to do. He tried not to love her, but that in itself was an admission of his weakness.

_I'd tried not to, and failed. How could I not? She's my type. Delicate and powerful and eternally memorable, despite its fragility. A violet. A flower. Even before she told her me her name I knew it, and that my hearts would break because of it. She's far too fragile for my love, but much stronger than the others – the TARDIS showed her what I saw, or, at least, a little glimpse of it, and she was not dead. Not yet._

“Kenneth. Sara. Mia. I saw them, Doctor. I loved them and they loved me.” She spoke of her children, the ones who could never be, now.

“But why give them up?”

“Because I don’t deserve them,” she said. “Kenny neither.”

“Your husband.” He still held her wrist. It lightened, little by little. “Neither do I.”

“And yet, here we are,” she said. “Remember. There are no lies allowed in this place.” She wrapped her arm around his waist and began to move. They danced. “You knew what you did when you brought me here. What would happen. You saw. The TARDIS showed me that.”

He moved mechanically. He liked to danced, but pain stiffened him.

“The others. She showed me them too. Other flowers. Strong women, but never strong enough. Not enough to truly shake those tired Time Lord bones.”

He kissed to top of her now silvered head.

“Spend the night with me.” She looked into his eyes. Her eyes were no longer gold, but they hadn't lost their gleam.

“It's not night here. We're simply suspended in the Crab nebula.”

She laughed and the mirrors shivered into golden clouds surrounded by fathomless black. They were suspended in space, the center of it all.

_I didn't know the TARDIS could do this. But it's beautiful._

She reached out to him. “Just one night. I'm not asking to know your name, but perhaps...”

“You're fading!” he said. He held her tight.

“But I'm still with you, here and now. I’ve made my choice. And nothing lasts forever.”

“The universe will.”

“The universe is merely the bones upon which we build our stories. And bones eventually turn to dust too.”

Violet. Wise way beyond her years. She knew his fears, that time when it would all start to crumble around the stubborn souls who survived. Yet she lived for tonight.

“For one night, let's not lie,” she said. “Come into me. Fill me up with your light.”

She knew. It was the only way for a human woman to withstand being with him. His timeline would mingle with her many and cause something that would look like a supernova to any human telescope with its eye trained where they were.

“I see you,” she said, running her fingers through his spiky hair. I see it.”  Her eyes reflected a churning ring of color, something no other human eyes had seen.

He wanted her, with both his hearts – it was the only reason she saw his timeline. He had only wanted one other woman as much, and she was not human. But she was dead.

“Not gold. Or silver, but so many things...” She held his hands, lacing her fingers through his long, slim ones. Golden light burned away the cloth between her legs. It called to him. His clothes burned too, turned to ash by his intense heat as he exposed his true form. His skin glowed like wet marble. His Time Lord body, fire contained by flesh. The stars themselves envied his heat. That's why so many enemies has sought, and eventually, nearly succeeded in wiping them out.

“You could light up suns like a candle,” she said. Her heart, a creature caught between his two. He glowed white as a firebrand between his legs.

She knew it all.

He pulled her close, unafraid. She would not burn up. Not yet. They kissed. She was hot but not like him. To him, her lips were cool and sweet. She wrapped her legs around him. He needed her to be hotter. Her timelines surrounded them both, shifting with every movement like smoke.

“Go ahead. Take me.” She caressed, gripped the back of his neck. “See me.”

He slid easily into her.

Her, baby, cake crusted in her high chair, sugar high and giggling. Child, scabbed knees, running through autumn leaves and squealing. Girl, riding a roller coaster by the sea, arms held high, eye closed with sensation. Watching a movie, lips parted, painted pale blue by the tv light. Glowing stars, stuck to the ceiling of her bedroom as her hands moved between her legs for the first time, searching, and finding. Young woman, with another. Kissing. Touching. Hitched breath. Soft moans. A woman with a man. Bared teeth and violent thrusting. 

Her heart beat, steady through it all, the most beautiful thing of all.

Her, now, in his arms, brow furrowed, sweat slick. He smelled her pleasure. Her timelines spun from her center and circled him in slow spirals that moved up toward their heads. Once they touched his, they'd give off energy like an imploding star. Her silver hair billowed around her face. She held him tighter. Her sweat sizzled on his skin. Her thighs squeezed around his narrow hips. Her flesh felt so tender to him, yet she withstood his heat. She finally warmed him, a miracle that made him laugh into space. She surrounded him so closely the sound bounced back to him. It was a nostalgic sound, since pain did not alter its timbre, something he forgot. It was new again. He was-

Her body rocked in his arms, and she cried out. She saw him.

A dizzying blur, moving too fast for to see clearly, but she felt it all. Childhood. Learning. Discipline. Teenage snippets of yearning. Most importantly, him, a man, robes billowing free in the breeze, a dark haired beauty, kisses, and love love love, then red burnt to ash as far as the eye could see…

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. Her atoms were whizz-buzzing faster and faster. Soon, she'd match velocity.

“ _Doctor!_ Before it all. The war, the death. You really were a-”

They held each other tight as their timelines touched, and energy burst from them that roared loud enough to be heard a million miles away. She glowed, just like him, and beads of sweat like diamonds rose from their flesh and burned away.

She knew now. Knew everything about him. Time moved through her consciousness as it moved through his, past her like a moveable rock in a stream; churning, spitting beauty. He never thought he'd feel this again, real deep down to his bones pleasure.

This is why he could not be with Rose. Or Martha. Time Lord commingling was not like human intercourse, although he could do it – he had the parts. Even the most intense sex was just a faint fainter _faintest_ facsimile of what he knew, and he stopped trying because it caused him endless frustration - enough to make him resent. He restrained himself for the good of the relationship, but even then, to the human, it seemed cruel.

But her, his bullet-proof Violet, had burned herself out to give him something he hadn't felt in an eternity. Love, in his language.

As the golden clouds dissipated, they sank down to the floor. They were fading back to shadow in the heart of the TARDIS. Her room, reflecting her bird-light form to him. The revelation, the thing that had made them rumble and burst like a storm, was killing her. He put his mouth over hers, intent on saving her life. She turned her face, too weak to push him away.

“No.”

He caressed her fine white hair. Her skin was still supple with the remainder of the supernova, but her insides were burning up.

“I can save you. If I suck it out, you might be able to go back and live.”

“But you won't. Not in this form, right? Not when the energy is mixed with mine.”

“I'll regenerate.” He tried again, but she pursed her lips closed, then kissed him. Her lips were hot now, hot enough to burn his Time Lord hide.

“Go back to London? There's no music to match you there, no tune I could write could top what we just did together. No Kenny, no Junior, Sarah, and Mia. It’s not your time. Not yet. I want to stay here. In your arms. I want to see your eyes, burning bright now, cool to their beautiful brown.”

He trembled, face twisted in agony. She reached into his head one last time.

The TARDIS dropped him in a London alley that night just in time to see her crushing a cigarette underneath her heel and squinting at the light. She walked inside confidently and put her hands on her waist. _Fuck me sideways, this thing's bigger on the inside_ , she said, walking up the ramp to the glowing console. He hid behind a column but she touched the buttons, laughing, unafraid. _Hello there! I can feel you watching_ , she said. _Not that I don't like it, but if you've come all this way, I want to see your face._ He showed himself, bashful. _Lord, you're a beauty,_ she said _._ He smelled her crushed blossom scent, and he knew her name. He pushed his glasses up on his narrow nose and smiled brightly, eyebrow high. She looked up at him, eyes dancing. _So this is you, huh? Pretty big._ She winked and extended her hand. _Violet,_ _right?_ he said. _And wonders never cease._ _What else do you know, spaceman?_ He took a step back. How did she know it's what Donna called him? She looked at the glowing heart of the TARDIS. She read his mind. _I've a whole murmuration of sparrows in my head, little birds telling me things, all the time._ She stretched on tiptoes, reaching for the shining column. And _**all**_ _of them told me about you, Doctor. Roared enough to split my head in two just about._ She touched it, gasped and fell back. He dropped to his knees to help her, but she grasped his arm vise-tight.   _ **She**_ _called me. She told me about you. You're hurting._   _Lonely. But something's coming_ -

The image faded to static and he snapped back to the present. She smiled at him. She was smaller in his arms.

 _When we first met._ It was telepathic. She was too weak to speak.

“Please don't,” he said. It just burned her out faster.

 _I was smoking. You helped me stop._ Particles began to rise from her skin. _What an irony._ She laughed and coughed up stardust, golden smoke. Despite his love, the universe was taking her back. Like justice, it is unmoved by love or fear.

_Breathe me in, spaceman. I want to go in your lungs. Let the last sound I hear be your hearts beating me all around you. But don't let my love make you bitter. Promise me._

“I promise.”

_Mean it, beautiful. Remember, I can read your mind._

He smiled, and nodded. He would try.

 _I love you. See you around...and around._  

Even in death, her humor remained. He hoped he could be so brave. He sobbed, then took a deep breath as she disintegrated into stardust in his arms. The TARDIS opened around him, and the bit he didn't breathe faded into the nebula.

“Thank you,” he said to the fading burn in his chest.

Thank you.


End file.
